


Don't Miss

by cheerynoir



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Execution, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Grief/Mourning, If You Think This Has A Happy Ending You Haven't Been Paying Attention, Men Crying, Shock, Vaginal Sex, the reality of living a hostage's life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 07:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5040094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheerynoir/pseuds/cheerynoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thea Greyjoy was ten-and-eight when her father signed her death warrant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Miss

The news came one morning, in the middle of summer. It was sunny and cold, a brisk wind rattling the windows in their panes. The morning’s snows had melted by the time the raven’s words reached her in Lord Stark’s solar. 

“There has been word from Eddara Tallhart, of Torrhen’s Square,” said Lord Stark, somber. Thea felt her smile falter. “Balon Greyjoy has sent a host reaving. Half of Flint’s Finger has been burned to the ground.”

He met her eyes squarely, but there was something stormy in his gaze. Something conflicted in the set of his mouth, the furrow in his brow. Or maybe she was imagining it – that seemed more likely.

“It will be done tomorrow at dawn. I’m sorry.”

Thea was ten-and-eight when her father signed her death warrant. 

 

#

 

She left the study in a haze, dimly aware of Jory keeping pace at her right. It confused her, for a moment, though that was barely enough to penetrate the fog that clouded her mind. 

_Does he think I’m going to bolt?_

_Where would I even go?_

A laugh bubbled up in her throat, hysteria at its finest, but she bit it back, swallowed it down with the bile that rising at the realization that this was happening. This was not some jape, not something that could be taken back. She was going to die tomorrow, at dawn, on her knees in the dirt. Ned Stark was going to take her head and put it on a spike. Her body would go back to Pyke, most likely, though she doubted the gesture would do much.

She wondered for an instant if it would hurt, the sword sheering through her neck, the bite of it.

Then Thea shuddered, shook her head hard, and made for the stables.

They would not let her ride, the bastards, so she rubbed Smiler down instead. Brush and blanket and hoof-pick, until the stallion looked set for a tourney. She braided his mane with nimble, practiced fingers. The stable boys left her well-alone. 

When the beast nosed at her, whickering, tail flicking, looking for apples, she laughed. And then the world crashed back in on her and she wanted to cry instead. Her stomach cramped tight and sharp and Thea hid her face against his neck. The smell of horse and hay was some small comfort, but it made swallowing tears all the harder.

“Sorry,” she murmured raggedly and petted Smiler’s velvet-soft nose with trembling fingers. “Sorry, boy. Nothing for you. Next time, huh?”

She hoped they would take care of him – Robb, at least. Smiler was an ill-tempered beast prone to biting everyone that wasn’t Thea, but Robb would see to give her boy an apple every so often. Maybe take him riding, to keep him happy.

Perhaps it would be enough.

#

“Found the Gods at last, have you, Greyjoy?”

“There are no Gods, Snow.” But the words came too heavy, too bitter. She was quick to add a sharpness, a grin. “Elsewise you’d have died in the cradle, to spare the rest of us having to look at your sour face. Or didn’t you know?”

It almost felt good to snipe at him, to see the way his eyes narrowed and his lips thinned. Her smile widened, all teeth, and the smell of rot filled her nose. Normalcy was a heavy mantle, but it was easier to bear when she wasn’t thinking about it.

The Godswood had been quiet, when she’d come. No Gods had spoken to her – Old or New – and there was a certain sort of loneliness in it. Still, the breeze blew sweet and the leaves rustled and it was pretty enough, which is why she’d wandered here in the first place.

“I thought you’d be different,” said Snow after a moment, watching. “Now. Since…”

Thea just shrugged and let her smile drop. “What would be the point?” she asked.

“To make amends?”

Thea laughed, hard and sharp and utterly without humour. The bile that had been bubbling since the morning came spewing out: “And what do I have to amend for? A Rebellion I was too young to take part in? Raiding and reaving parties, when I’ve never stepped foot on one of the Fleet? I might be Ironborn, but I am not all Ironborn, you bastard. But by all means, lay your Northern dead at my feet, it makes no mind to me, but I will not apologize for something I had no part in.”

There was something ugly in Jon’s eyes – dark and liquid – that made Thea want to gouge them out. Pity, she realized with a dull sort of horror. Gods above and below, he pities me. 

The inside of her mouth tasted sour and sharp. She stalked past him without looking at him. She would not take his pity, no more than she would stand his disapproval.  
“Greyjoy.”

She stopped, despite herself.

“You … weren’t so bad. In the end.”

“I wish I could say the same,” she spat.

She didn’t look back.

#

Robb found her just as the sun was beginning to sink in the West. 

“I was looking for you today,” he said, and it was loud in the quiet of the room. Thea just reached for the wine. “Jon said you were in the Godswood, but Sansa hadn’t seen you… You should eat something,” Robb went on, stepping into the room and glancing about. Everything that hadn’t been nailed down had been destroyed, torn to shreds. All save the gown she’d hung beside her bed – so dark blue it was nearly black – and the ivory combs and gems she’d wear in her hair and around her throat. It had taken her two hours to decide, but it was a weighty decision.

She burned every kraken-embroidered stitch of clothing she had ever owned. It had felt good to see the gold thread wither and burn.

“Why?” she asked. “One skipped meal won’t kill me.”

He flinched, and Thea laughed hoarsely at her own jape. It wasn’t a particularly good one, but it beat silence. Her attention returned to the fire, and she reached for a poker to stir it.

“Wait—”

She paused, and tossed a glance over her shoulder. Robb, wide-eyed, seemed to have realized what was going on. Her smile was a mean little thing, and she took a mouthful of wine to cover it.

In the hearth, arrows crackled and popped merrily, spurred on by rends of black and gold fabric. She’d snapped them over her knee, but her bow was a tougher task, and she was left to use it as a poker instead, its string cut.

“What are you doing?” he asked, and yanked the bow from her hand.

“What I can,” Thea replied. The smoke from the fire made her eyes sting, and she blinked hard and fast. “Are they gone – Jory’s boys?”

“...No,” said Robb. Slowly, he eased himself down beside her in front of the fire. “No. They’re still out there.”

Thea nodded and passed him the wine. “Then have a drink, Robb. I suspect we’re both going to need it.”

So they drank. When the wine ran out, she dragged a bottle of plum liquor out from under her bed and they drank it instead. It was as special an occasion as she would ever get, after all. 

After an hour, the heat of the room and the booze in her belly made her slow and languid, and she rested her head on Robb’s shoulder.

“I tried to stop it,” Robb said at last, low, like he was ashamed. At failing or attempting in the first place Thea had no idea, and did not ask. His lips were wet with liquor, his hold on the bottle loose. “I tried to talk to him.”

“Lord Stark? Why?”

“Because you don’t deserve this.” He stroked clumsy fingers through her hair. “You shouldn’t have to pay for your father’s crimes. You’re an innocent.”

She laughed then, hollow. Her eye stung. “I have not been an innocent since I was nine, in your father’s eyes. Too much blood on my hands, maybe.”

He drew her in, then, until she could press her face into his neck. His arms were tight around her, his hands unsteady as he stroked down her back. He did not smell of horse and hay, but there was something comforting in it all the same.

She felt his breath stir her hair, and for a wild moment she thought he would help her – smuggle her to the stables to find Smiler ready for a midnight run, a desperate ride to White Harbor, a ship, Essos and beyond – but he only shuddered.

“Thea, I…” he said. His voice was thick and raw. She kissed him to keep him quiet.

She could not bear his grief any more than she could bear Jon’s pity.

He kissed her like a dying man, and the thought made her laugh – high and sharp and splintering – into his mouth. His hands found her shoulders, her waist, her teats and tangled in her hair.

Her fingers tangled in his laces, and she did not think. Not about the dawn, not about the consequences. 

She stripped the future Lord of Winterfell bare, just to look at him in the light of her burning sigil, to imprint the look of him, flushed and wanting, into her brain.

He tore her dress in his haste to get it off and did not apologize.

To thank him, she left a line of stinging kisses down his neck, sure to bruise. That act alone was nearly as satisfying as guiding him into her; knowing that some part of her would linger after tomorrow morning.

When it was done, Robb crumbled, and Thea could not even find the energy to be bitter. She held the boy instead, stroked her fingers through his hair.

_I shouldn’t have to do this for you,_ she thought. _I’m the one that’s dying, Robb._

But she was grateful, too. It was easier, to rub a hand down his back and make the soft hushing noises no one ever made for her than it was to fall into the great emptiness yawning open inside her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was a ragged thing, breaking. His arms came around her and crushed her to his chest, his face buried in her neck. “I would save you from this if I could.”

_Funny,_ she thought, even though it wasn’t. She rubbed the tears from his cheeks and did not attempt to smile. In the morning, he would be the one to hand his father Ice, that much she knew. 

_Funny. I was about to say the same._

#

The dawn broke cold and wet, and the clouds had a pearly sheen.

Thea donned her finery and bound up her hair. She swung herself into Smiler’s shadow, and smoothed a shaking hand across his neck. Every breath was a panicked sip of air, but her eyes were dry.

They rode in silence.

#

Lord Stark did not ask for final words. He did not ask her anything, at the end of it. The block stood before her, old and worn and stained from use, and the hills rose up on all sides. Her skirts were damp with fog, and her breath hung in the air.

She stood across from Lord Stark – as imposing now as he had been when she was nine – with the block between them. She was dimly aware of the banners flapping in the breeze, the nickering of the horses. The creak of leather when Robb and Jon and even Bran shifted in their saddles before dismounting.

She thought she would speak for an instant – the words flickering through her mind, there and gone. Dying for a father’s sins, an innocent put to the sword, a curse upon the Stark and Greyjoy households both. Something worthy of a song. Something passionate and bold and bitter.

“Will it hurt?” she asked instead. The words didn’t carry past the block. Her lips were numb, her tongue clumsy. The wind seemed to steal the words and fling them back in her face.

“No,” he said.

Lord Stark did not meet her eyes.

Thea nodded jerkily and bent the knee before the Greatjon’s men could force her. Her eyes were dry and her pride stung. She bowed her head and stared down at the snow, her skirts. She tasted blood in her mouth, and she didn’t know if it was fear or if she’d only bitten her tongue. She could not feel her hands, and her head was full of bees, their buzzing loud enough to block out the world.

He spoke then, but the words had a queer quality – murky. It was as though she was underwater, and his words washed over her deaf ears. It wouldn’t matter anyway.

From the corner of her eye there was a glint of silver. A whistling cut the air.

Then nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr prompt: "Thea greyjoy's reaction to being sent to the block by ned because her father rebelled and she has to pay for it."
> 
> My inbox is always open. Come say hi on tumblr - I'm cheerynoir.
> 
> A million thanks to janie_tangerine for giving this a skim. Let me know what you think!


End file.
